


I Bled Indigo Skies

by Drel_Murn



Series: Step by Step [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Airbending & Airbenders, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blind Character, Dreamsharing, Earthbending & Earthbenders, Gen, Genocide, Meddling, Meddling Spirits, Mentors, Muteness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Runaway, Runaway Zuko, Si Wong Desert, Spirits, Telepathy, Wolf Coyote Ramlah Tribe, mute character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-16
Updated: 2017-03-06
Packaged: 2018-08-22 21:03:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8300921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drel_Murn/pseuds/Drel_Murn
Summary: "Should my parents ask, it's too late. I stood and I bled indigo skies."It's a story, one the Fire Nation would probably kill us for spreading because spark is a spark, and it won't take much to ignite opposition.





	1. Gaoling

Perhaps it’s just something my mind put together that I liked the idea of, by I’m fairly sure that my first memory if of his laugh, loud, and bubbling and higher than it is now. But if it wasn’t his laugh, than I perhaps it was his arms, his legs, his warmth. I may not have known how to tell people apart with my bending while I was young, but I didn’t need that if everyone was so different from the person I was trying to tell apart.

 

If no one else, I’ve always understood him. It’s not like either of us have it easy.

 

* * *

 

I tilt my head slightly to listen for Samir before I stand up and reach out to touch the cherry tree. I wander around the clearing  and check on all of the flowers and other plants that are the same type as ones I’ve found in garden. I smile slightly as I hear Samir appear, and I only have to wait a moment before he tackles me.

 

His fingers press in the specific pattern that means me, that means  _ Toph. _

 

_ Hello, silly, _ I giggle, turning so that I can hug him and press the words into his skin.  _ How are you? _

 

_ Good! _ Samir replies, bouncing slightly as he pulls back.  _ Mama let me make string today. _

 

_ Oh, yeah? _ I ask, sitting down.  _ How did you do? _

 

Samir shifts slightly, sitting down next to me and slumping as he considers my words.  _ My string was really lumpy, and mother said that it was weak because I was adding the new length of cord too late. _

 

_ Don’t worry, _ I encourage him, reaching out to grasp his upper arms.  _ Remember, that was your first time making strong. You’ll get better! _

 

_ Yeah! _ Samir nods brightly, straightening. Then he leans forward and asks softly,  _ How are you? _

 

_ My parents are still stifling me, _ I grumble, leaning back into the tree.  _ I asked them to at least let me be alone when I’m in the garden, that doesn’t change much, but all that happened was the grad started to walk a ways behind me. It’s like they think I can’t hear him! On the very loud gravel! _

 

_ You still going to try to run away? _ Samir asks gently.

 

_ Yes, _ I reply without hesitation.  _ I tried it the nice way, it didn’t work. _

 

_ I wish you’d wait for me to come get you, _ Samir sighs.  _ I know you don’t need anyone really, but I’d feel so much better if you’d wait for me. _

 

_ Yes, and I’ll feel so much better if I have to wait five years before I escape my parents, _ I snort.  _ I’ll be fine. Besides, I don’t want you to - It’ll hurt. You already have enough troubles at the edge of the desert. Coming to Gaoling would hurt even more. _

 

_ You don’t have to worry about that, _ Samir insists, but his shifting shows his discomfort with the idea.  _ I’ll be fine. _

 

_ It doesn’t matter, _ I state firmly, lifting my chin stubbornly.  _ I’m coming to meet you! _

 

His reply doesn’t require words, and he grasps my hand, gently squeezing it.

 

* * *

 

_ Can’t you let me go? _ I groan silently as I hold myself still in the miniscule niche I’d managed to create. I can hear the guards running around on the gravel of the path ways and yelling at each other. The niche is lumpy against my back, and I try not to frown as I shift slightly to get away from a rock digging into my back.

 

I’ve been in here for a while, and while I’m still savoring the triumph of getting out of my guard’s notice, I had thought that they would have stopped searching by now. I’m pretty sure that night has fallen by now from the feeling of cold air, but they’re still running around the garden and searching for me.

 

I sigh silently, and settle myself back against the lumpy wall of the niches. My teacher is useless, I learned just about nothing from him. He’s always demonstrating things in front of me, doing something then telling me to copy him and getting frustrated when all I do - all I can do is stand there. He forgets I’m blind, acts as if I can see, and doesn’t let me talk at all whenever he’s teaching me. Everything I’ve done in order to earthbend has been own my own. And, I scowl as I shift again, trying to find a spot where there isn’t a rock poking into my back, what little I’ve managed has been pitiful.

 

Finally, what was probably hours after I’d managed to hide, people finally stop running around the garden. I wait a while more  before I cautiously creep out of my hiding place. I carefully make my way over to the sturdy tree that grows along the garden wall and I climb it carefully, groping for the branches and the wall.  I manage to get myself over the wall without too much trouble, but I’m shivering by the time I land on my feet with a thud. 

 

I stumble slightly then start to walk carefully. I can’t see anything in front of me, and for once, I don’t know where everything around me is because I’ve never been here before. It’s exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. I can see why Samir wanted me to wait for him now, and my teeth start to chatter as I walk through the night.

 

I yelp as the next step I take is on thin air, and I trip and fall what feel to be about the same distance as I’d fallen from the top of the wall. I land on what feels like a . . . an animal? There’s a loud grumbling sound, and I yelp, scrambling off of the animal and falling to the ground. I try to get out of whatever it is that I fell into, only to find myself pushed against the rock of a rough wall. I tremble as the animal moves, feeling air puff against my face and a wet nose before it -

 

“Oh, ew!”

 

I wipe the animal’s spit off my face, just in time for it to lick me again.

 

“Alright, alright,” I say, trying to push the animal’s head away. It sniffs me one more time then lumbers back to where it had been sleeping before I crashed into it. I blink, then yawn. It’s been awhile since I was able to relax because I had to be so still while I was hiding. It wouldn’t be bad it I slept here, right?

 

* * *

 

When I wake up in the morning after a night with Samir, the animal is gone and I’m alone in the hole. I sight and stand. I knew that was too good to be true. I stumble slightly as suddenly the ground around me rumbles and gasp as I hear some of the rock moving to me right with a grinding sound. The animal from last night - it’s got to be a badgermole - comes in and dumps something at my feet then licks me again.

 

I can’t help but laugh slightly this time as the nudges my neck and tickles me. I crouch down and grab the thing that the badgermole had dropped in front of me. It’s an appleorange, a bit slimy from the badgermole’s spit, but still recognisable. I carefully peel a little bit of it and bite into it, smiling at the familiar taste. I stumble slightly when the badgermole nudges me and look up. “What is it?”

 

The badger mole nudges me again, towards the wall behind me. It makes a snorting sound and paws at the wall. I tilt my head, still not understanding. The badger mole make the shuffling sound again, then it  _ shifted _ \- I could feel the way it moved without any doubt that it would be stopped. And the earth moved with the badge mole, sliding to the ceiling and solidifying itself into a layer of hard rock.

 

Then then badgermole  _ shifts _ again, and the earth that it had moved to the ceiling slides down and becomes a wall again. I tremble because I know exactly what happened. I know exactly - well, not exactly, but almost - how to do that myself. I know to to move the earth so that I can walk, and I know how to -

 

I know where everything is. The badgermole had dropped more than just the appleorange at my feet, and I find myself crouching to pick up the lettucechoke and the eggsquash, just to check that they’re really there. The badger mole nudges me again as I stand with the vegetables under one arm, and the partially eaten appleorange in my other hand.

 

“Alright,” I say. “Alright.”

 

And I  _ shift _ -

 

* * *

 

I don’t know how long I was with the badgermoles before he found me - day become very subjective when you don’t have something holding you to a schedule, and I never cared to ask - but I doubt that it was any amount of time less than a month because I had learned so much.

 

Samir’s footsteps were so different - light, and drifting, only just hinting at where he was. This person’s footsteps were heavy. It wasn’t until he was down in the tunnels that I realised that his tunnels remind me of mine - of the badgermole’s.

 

He pauses when he sees me alone in the tunnel. “What are you doing here?”

 

“I ran away,” I say slowly. I hadn’t talked with words really since I left.

 

“Would you come back with me?”

 

Go back? “Why?”

 

He huffed a laugh. “I need the money. They were beginning to lose hope, so I I thought that I might as well. I didn’t expect to succeed.”

 

He sounds tired, and lost. I consider the badgermoles who are just beyond the stone wall. They’d taken care of me and taught me how to see. But there isn’t anything left to learn. They aren’t as inventive as humans, and they don’t have as many tricks. “Alright.”

 

The man talks to me as we go, his hand in mine to lead me despite the dirt and the muck I can feel covering me, despite the way I know I smell, despite that fact that I don’t stumble once.

 

Nuan. His name is Nuan, and he’s from Nishiyama - one of the oldest Fire Nation colonies.

 

“Your family managed to stay?” I ask him.

 

“Stay? What are you talking about?” Nuan asks me.

 

“You’re an earthbender, or at least from an earth family.”

 

“I’m Fire Nation, brat.”

 

I tilt my head and examine his footsteps silently for a couple of moments. “You walk like an earthbender. Firmly. I don’t know what firebenders walk like, but you walk like an earthbender.”

 

There’s silence.

 

“I am one.”

 

* * *

 

_ So, you went back with him? _ Samir asks, rolling thread together in an attempt to make a smooth string.

 

_ He's interesting. My mother offered him a job when I got back, so he'll around for a while. There wasn't really much more for me to learn from the badgermole anyways. Mostly I just needed to practice. _

 

_ But the stifling? _

 

_ I can stand it. _

 

* * *

 

“Brat, running away just to come over to my house isn't a good thing.”

 

I grin at his exasperation, swinging my legs.

 

“You know that look doesn't work on me,” Nuan says, but his voice is softer as he settles next to me.

 

“Always worth a try,” I shrug, letting my heels knock against the wall. “How’s your bending coming along?”

 

“It’s coming along fine, like it was the last time you asked. You know, your parents are going to get suspicious if I’m the one who always finds you.”

 

“Well, I’m so good at disguising my tracks that it’s not like anyone else could find me,” I say happily. “So, what do you think of that earthbender competition? Do you think I could win?”

 

“I think that’s a good way of getting trapped as a gladiator brat. Once the producers have found someone who’s good, they’ll want them to keep coming back until they’re defeated. And by the time you decide you want to leave, they know your style well enough to know when you’re faking.”

 

“You seem to know a lot,” I state blandly.

 

“Thank my cousin. He was like me, and he decided to fight in the Nishiyama rumble. It was fire and earth, and everyone wore disguises, so he wasn’t suspicious. He did fairly well despite - or maybe because of his lack of any formal training, so he was asked to come back.”

 

I can hear the sadness in his voice, but he just keeps looking forward. “By the time he had enough money to make it out of the Nishiyama area and perhaps settle somewhere else, he was fairly popular. We got him out, but it was hard. I don’t know where he is now because if we’d contacted him, they would have been able to find him.”

 

“Alright.” Even if I hadn’t felt the way his heart beat remained steady, that was a discouraging tale. “Alright. Will you help me practice then?”

 

“Sure.”

 

* * *

 

_ I’m not going to the Rumbles. _

 

_ Good! _

 

_ Nuan talked me out of it. Told me his cousin’s story. It sounded bad. _

 

_ I told you it was a bad idea, but no, you had to go play with the big, rough earthbenders. _

 

**_I’m_ ** _ a big, rough earthbender. I can take care of myself. Besides, he promised to help me practice. _

 

_ You are not a big, rough earthbender, you’re my sweet and precious little Toph. Ow! _

 

_ You were asking for it,  _ **_Granite_ ** _. _

 

**_Sugar._ **

 

**_Sandstone._ **

 

**_Honey._ **

 

* * *

 

“So, have you heard of that one guy the traders are talking about? The one who defended them from the Fire Nation soldiers on their way here?” Nuan asks, not even bothering to chastise me before he sits down. I grin around the boiled sweet I’d grabbed from his pantry. It’s been a year since we met, and he’s finally stopped trying to scold me for coming over to his house whenever I didn’t feel like being at home.

 

“No, I have not heard about him, seeing as the only time I would hear about him is with you,” I grumble. “So, what’s interesting about him?”

 

“Well, he’s wearing a spirit mask. He choose one that was appropriate, but . . .”

 

“You think he’s actually a spirit?”

 

“Well, consider what spirits let people use their image for: plays, festivals, and decoration. Outside of that, they tend to be mad at people who pretend to be them,” Nuan says slowly.

 

“True,” I nod. “Well, we probably won’t be seeing him if different groups have seen him. He’s probably just going to say in that area.”

 

* * *

 

_ Toph. _

 

His hands flinch away halfway through my name, and I quickly reach out for him, blood sticking to my fingers as I reach for his hand. He’s covered in blood. He’s covered in blood. I- he’s covered in blood! What do I do?

 

His breathing is uneven

 

(he always breathes evenly he’s an airbender he has to breathe evenly)

 

as I find his hands clasped against his side. Samir convulses slightly, and I can hear him throw up

 

(the sound of liquid hitting the leafs beneath his back the smell of bile fills the air sharply, mixing with the copper scent of blood)

 

before he moans, the sound long and low. I scramble to do something, anything, but I don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do,  _ I don’t know what to do- _

 

“-lady! Milady! Please wake up milady! It’s just a dream!”

 

I gasp, fighting against the arms that are pulling me away from Samir.

 

“No! No! Don’t die! You can’t die! Sa-” I break into a coughing fit, my throat raw.

 

“Milady please!”

 

The words break me out of my train of thought this time, and I go limp in the maid’s arms, still sobbing.

 

_ Why did I wake up? When he needed me, why did I wake up? Samir - _

 

“Milady, are you alright?” the maid asks gently, letting me crawl back onto my bed.

 

“Do you know how to treat a gut wound?” I ask, pulling my blanket up to cover me again.

 

“N-no,” the maid replies, sounding startled. “Why? Are you hurt?”

 

“I’m fine. Bye.”

 

“Milady?”

 

“Thank you. Goodnight.”

 

“Goodnight, milady.”

 

* * *

 

The morning came, as sleepless as the night before it, and I blink dry eyes against the nothingness as I listen to servants moving outside my door.  Samir’s hurt. I couldn’t sleep. Saamir’s hurt, and I couldn’t sleep so I couldn’t help him. My breath hitches slightly as I hold back a sob. I couldn’t help him because I couldn’t sleep - and what if he’s dead? What if he’s dead because I couldn’t help him what if he’s alive but he doesn’t want to talk to me see me communicate ever again because I couldn’t help him what if he’s alive this might happen again if he’s alive it might happen again and what if I can’t help him then I need -

 

The maid comes in, gets me out of bed, and dresses me. I woodenly follow her directions and stand there when she leaves me alone.

 

_ What if he’s dead. I can’t let this happen again. _

 

I reach for my hair to pat it slightly. It’s in another of the utterly ridiculous hairstyles that my family is always telling my maid to do my hair up in, one of the ones that I pull out the moment I find an excuse to. My dress today is overly elaborate, with embroidered flowers, totally unpractical. Before, I’d found these things necessary to please my family, but I shouldn’t be here. I should be with Samir.

 

* * *

 

“Brat,” Nuan says. I shift the bag to my other side so that he can sit next to me, and he does after a moment. “What are you planning?”

 

“I’m leaving.”

 

“ . . . that’s rather sudden. What happened?”

 

“Someone was hurt, and I wasn’t there for him.”

 

There’s a pause, and I’m sure that Nuan’s staring at me.

 

“You wouldn’t happen to be talking with them in your dreams, would you?”

 

Talking, not exactly, but the sentiment is close enough. I nod.

 

“Spirits! It’s everyone and their brother around me,” Nuan mutters, shifting his weight slightly on the stone roof to run a hand through his hair.  “Can I come with you?”

 

I tilt my head slightly at the question, and after all our time together, he knows me well enough to know what I’m asking.

 

“No. I’m not doing this because your parents are paying me to.” Nuan hesitates for a moment before he continues. “There were some people - my best friend and his brother - who met with people in their dreams. I know that you don’t have any opportunities to contact people outside of here, and I thought that . . . that you might be like them.”

 

I consider that for a moment. “You think I’m like your best friend?”

 

I can practically feel his eyes on me. “Yeah.”

 

I sigh and tilt my face upwards. The air is still, and I and abruptly reminded of Samir

 

(might be dead I need to go)

 

“Well then, I’ll give you an hour to pack. Be quicker if you can.”

 

Nuan shifts as he nods, and I lean back against the roof so that I can pretend that I’m only sheltered from the wind. Nuan is ready in half an hour, with a set of loudly crinkling papers tucked and wrapped between a pair of earth slabs. Then we’re off.

 

* * *

 

At the end of the first day, after I’d pulled my hair out of the elaborate (and falling apart) arrangement that the maid had put it in that morning, I silently tuck the pins and sticks and various other things I’d found in my hair into my bag. I can’t sleep. The next morning, I pull my hair up into the simpler bun favored by most people, people who needed their hair to stay up while they worked.

 

Nuan looks but doesn’t comment. We break camp and start walking. We reach a small village about halfway through the day, and pick up a lot of food and water. I hadn’t thought to get the supplies, and what Nuan had brought wouldn’t last for very long. I’m exhausted, but I can’t sleep, my mind won’t stop thinking and I can’t stop shifting because Samir might be dead and if he’s dead I don’t think I can if he’s dead then

 

My head buzzes and one moment Nuan is telling me that he’s going to get supplies, the next moment I’m plodding along in the desert again, and I don’t know what happened between those two moments.

 

It happens more and more though, one moment Nuan’s humming a song from Dance of the Phoenix, the next he’s muttering his way through a ditty that sounds suspiciously like one of Kun’s hymns. At one point I find myself leaning against sandstone, face turned to the distance in the direction I know I have to go towards.

 

Then the night is slipping away and we’re walking again. Nuan makes me drink at some point, and I remember tugging at his arm to show his a hidden well where we could refill our water skins at some point before suddenly I find myself looking at a grouping of dark tents, and there are date trees because of course there are date trees, this is an oasis and there are people scattered like matchstick and there are people in metal, silly people, you don’t wear metal in the desert and there are people wearing long long robes over robes and there is person with mask and robe walking towards

 

tent is cool and there is arm on my shoulder and there is Samir and there is Samir and there is Samir and his eyes are closed and I touch his face and I close my eyes and there is talking and there is Samir

 

* * *

 

_ Toph? _

 

* * *

 

_ Toph! _

 

* * *

 

_ Please wake up Toph. _

 

* * *

 

There’s a pair of hands on my shoulders and a smile of my lips as I drift towards consciousness.

  
Samir is here.


	2. Si Wong Desert

My life, at first was not interesting. I was very much like any other child of my tribe, running around the tents and playing with the other children when the tents were up, and sticking closer to my mom and dad when they were down. Sure, it’s true that I was mute, but I learned the silent language of the tribes as any child did, and I was able to communicate that way. Sure, I met with Toph in my dreams, and to others that may have been special, but to me it was as normal as the winds that blow from the east. I can bend air, but that is the same ability that many of my people have.

 

Even when my tribe was attacked, and I lay on the sand, gasping against the pain of the slash that bit deep into my side, and yet still dropped me like I was a sack of stones, as the footsteps of Fire Nation soldiers crunch in the sand around me, I am normal. Just another tribe, just another of the many peoples to fall to the Fire Nation. I don’t know if they found out that my tribe had more of the airbenders that they had tried to wipe out so many years ago, or if it had simply been decided that we were a hinderance to the expansion of the _grand_ Fire Nation.

 

 _Toph,_ I reach, then I moan and throw up.

 

* * *

 

I dream. It’s an odd feeling, after so many years of lucidity and Toph. My mind replays one of my people’s stories for me, placing me as Ilesh, blessed of Dusk, and come to revive him. Toph is there as Avani, and the role fits her perfectly in a strange way, hiding sharpness behind fans, and a wealthy upbringing behind down to earth practicality.

 

* * *

 

I wake to silence and warmth. I can hear the gentle rustling of fibers, and when I open my eyes, there’s a man dressed in Earth Kingdom greens, who is rolling a strand of string out.

 

I’m feel vaguely startled when he looks up, and his eyes are not the green of Manik, who had just woken me in the dream. His eyes are Fire Nation brown, and I can’t even bring myself to feel scared. I feel wrung out - like the date-plumbs we leave out to dry whenever we find them.

 

“Are you Samir?” the man asks, and his fingers still. I nod. “Ah. That’s good.”

 

He returns to his string, and I watch him. I wonder if this is all just a dream. If I will wake up on my bedroll to the sound of my mother’s absent humming, and children laughing outside.

 

There’s a warmth on my chest, and I recognise Toph when I let myself relax and turn my head.

 

* * *

 

The man is gone when I next open my eyes, but there is a man with Ryung’s mask sitting across from me and sharpening a sword. The sound rasps in my ears with an almost echoing quality. I watch him drowsily, still half asleep until I fade back out again.

 

* * *

 

I next wake up to words gasped in my ears and hands on my shoulders, and pale green eyes and hands patting me gently all over as someone tries to pull them away and “Let me go! Samir, Samir are you okay?”

 

“He’s fine, girl! Now stop pawing at him! You might tear his wounds open!”

 

The hands abruptly go still, and the blanket is promptly yanked off of me as I blink at the ceiling. Toph - that’s Toph in the arms of the man I had thought was Manik, and Ryung - the man with Ryung’s mask is looking over me and shaking his head. I watch numbly as he gestures towards a lantern, and fire responds to his call.

 

He turns to me, and with his hands covered by the suddenly rainbow flames, he slides fingers along my left side.

 

I sleep again.

 

Flames surround me in my dreams, burning me over and over because I can’t get away not matter how much I run, and my bending only encourages the flames as soldiers in red armour  laugh and direct the fire to consume me.

 

* * *

 

_Hey, silly._

 

I open my eyes to see Toph with a grin on her face.

 

_. . . Toph._

 

_How are you feeling?_

 

_I’m alright. When did we put a tent up?_

 

Toph’s smile dims slightly. _Put up . . . Samir, we didn’t put the tent up. We’re not dreaming - this is the tent of someone from your tribe._

 

 _But . . . you’re here,_ I say, turning to glance around the tent.

 

_Yeah, I came for you._

 

“Toph, dinner’s done,” the man I had thought was Manik says, head sticking into the tent. He glances at me. “Do you want me to bring it in here?”

 

“No,” Toph says firmly, and it’s a shock to hear her voice. “We’ll be right out.”

 

The man nods and ducks out, leaving the tent flapping slightly in his wake.

 

 _Come on,_ Toph says, turning back to me. _The blue spirit says you’re healed enough to get up, so you should._

 

 _Who was that?_ I ask, allowing Toph to pull me to my feet. I stumble slightly, and she hands me a shirt. _Who’s the blue spirit?_

 

I put the shirt on as I wait for a reply.

 

_The man is Nuan - you remember him right? And the blue spirit is a man who’s wearing the mask of some spirit and going around helping defend traders and other people from the Fire Nation._

 

 _Oh,_ I say before Toph is pulling me out of the tent and into the moonlight. There are two people sitting by a fire in front of the tent. I feel a shiver as I look around, in part to avoid looking at the fire. This is the only tent to have a fire in front of it. The rest of the tents are cold and dark, and I want to sink to my knees.

 

 _Hey,_ Toph says, her arm around my shoulders. _You alright?_

 

My hands are shaking and my finger nails bite into my palms as the truth sinks in. This isn’t my dream. The empty tents do a better job of convincing me of this than Ryung or the Manik-lookalike - Nuan - because this isn’t something I would dream up.

 

 _No,_ I manage to reply to Toph. _No, I’m not alright._

 

“Hey Toph, is your friend alright?” Nuan asks, and I look up at him, and catch a glimpse of his _Fire Nation_ brown eyes, and I growl.

 

I leap forward, and the next thing I know, I’m throwing myself at him, howling wordlessly as Toph tries to keep me back - she’s only using her arms, but she’s just that much bigger than me that it matters, and in a corner of my mind, I know that she could have easily let me go and just used her earthbending. I’m close enough to the stupid lying Fire Nation - Fire Nation jerk that I can almost touch him, and yet he looks so relaxed, as if I pose no threat to him at all -

 

He smiles at Toph and says, “Let him go.”

 

She hesitates for a moment before she releases me, and I fly at Nuan, swing my fists at his face like my mother taught me but I meet is block after block as I try to hit him, with his stupid Fire Nation face, and his stupid Fire Nation eyes, and his stupid earthbending that he could probably take me out with in a moment because I haven’t been taught how to really do anything other than control myself.

 

My fists get slower and slower as I tire myself out against Nuan, and all he does is keep blocking me with an odd sad expression on my face until I collapse against him. Tears are streaming down my cheeks - have been for the past couple minutes - but Nuan doesn’t say anything, simply letting me cry into is shoulder as I keep hitting him - not that there’s any force behind my fists any more.

 

 _Why? Why did they choose to target my tribe?_ I sign, hands flying. _Why didn’t I die with my tribe? Was this my fault? Was this because I’m an airbender? Why did I have to be an airbender? Lady Kun, why couldn’t I have been one of yours instead?_

 

“It isn’t your fault.”

 

I glance up at Nuan. He eyes are distant as he repeats himself. “It isn’t your fault. Most likely, nothing you chose to do cause this.”

 

I push myself backwards, breaking the circle of his arms. _“Most likely? Hah! I’m an airbender! Someone probably saw me, and word got passed around until the Fire Nation hear and said, ‘Oh hey! Look, here’s another airbender that we need to squash!’ So don’t go telling me it’s not my fault!”_

 

I can vaguely hear Toph behind me, repeating the words that I had just signed as I glare at Nuan. His eyes narrow.

 

“Sure!” he exclaims, throwing his hands up in the air. “Someone could have seen you bend. But there are a million other things it could have been - you’re clogging a trade route they wanted or some commander simply wanted your people dead to prove himself to the Fire Lord. Each of those is just as likely - if not more so! At least you weren’t expected to save your tribe - you’re young enough that  you would have been told to run! I didn’t have that luxury! I failed -”

 

His voice breaks, and he looks away and for a moment I feel so impotently angry that I want to scream. “I failed, and I didn’t even manage to do what he always told me to if he died . . .”

 

“Nuan,” Ryung breathes, breaking the silence after a moment, and the man before me jerks, glancing over at the masker figure. Ryung is leaning forward, and though I can’t read his face with the mask, it’s clear enough that he’s not just guessing.

 

“Who?” Nuan asks, his voice not betraying the lie, and Ryung’s mask tilts ever so slightly, like he’s looking to someone just beyond me. I glance back reflexively, and shiver at the empty darkness. Whatever he was looking at seemed to have made up his mind, because when I look back at him, Ryung is speaking again, this time with confidence.

 

“Nuan. It’s nice to see you again. I thought you were dead. They said you died with Lu Ten. Is he alive too? Did you ever find Rakesh?”

 

“Come on,” Toph whispers, tugging me away from them. “This is something they need to deal with by themselves.”

 

“Who are you?” Nuan asks behind me, but his voice trembles.

 

“I’m Zuko,” Ryung says, and I glance back as Toph pulls me into the tent. I wipe the tears from my face and follow her away from the fire I’d been avoiding. Under his mask, Ryung isn’t that much older than us. I hadn’t realised that. “Who else could I be?”

 

_Isn’t that . . . the missing Fire Price?_

 

* * *

 

Life moves on.

 

I learn that I can’t really stand any fire bigger than a lamp or an candle any more. My heart picks up whenever I look at the fire that is set of for warmth and cooking. Toph must have noticed, because after the second night I spent huddled under piles of blankets, my face turned steadfastly away from the entrance of the tent where the fire was visible, the fire was built off to the side so that I could come out without having to look straight at it.

 

All of my tribe’s things get packed up, and everything that I can’t bear to leave behind I carry. The rest of the things get put into the seasonal caves for the other tribes to take or leave as they will. I’m not about to go violating that common courtesy for some petty reason such as trying to keep my clan’s memory. I didn’t want the blood stained tents, the reminder that my tribe is dead.

 

The only tent I take is one that was never used. It had been meant for Shiel and Anju, for when they felt they were ready to actually get together. It was meant to last a family or decades, and it was easily large enough for our group of four.

 

I let Toph and Nuan have a choice of a new mount from the ostrich camels we’d managed to round up, then I set the rest of them free to roam the land around the caves. There’s a stream originating from somewhere in the depths of the caves that pools to the left of the entrance, and supports enough grass that the herd should be fine until they’re all taken in.

 

I have trouble saying goodbye some of them when we leave - my mother’s Girilal; the gentle giant Charan, who was my family’s pack animal for as long as I could remember; my father’s Kavi. In the end, I only kept my Mi Shin. Zuko was . . . impatient throughout the whole ordeal, and I saw him sitting a couple feet away from the tent he was using and staring at the sky. I watched him in the late evenings, fingers automatically twisting the fiber in my hands into thread.

 

Once just who Zuko was sank in, I panicked and frantically asked Toph if she’d repeated the part about me being an airbender out loud.

 

 _What do you think I am?_ Toph asks me as she adds another stitch to the half sewn robe on her lap. _Of course I didn’t tell them, I thought that you would regret it later if I did that._

 

 _Thank you,_ I sigh, sitting back and staring at the ceiling of the cave. _What are we going to do now? I don’t think . . . I don’t think that I could continue living the the desert like I do now. Too many memories. But, I don’t have a clear goal._

 

_Well, we could all go and follow Zuko’s example._

 

 _His example? Oh, you mean as blue spirit._ I stare at the ceiling as I think about doing that. _I . . . I actually like that idea quite a lot._

 

I glance down to Toph as she frowns at the cloth on her lap, then puts in another stitch. _Zuko’s already got a mask, so how do you think we should disguise ourselves?_

 

 _Considering that I can’t see, I probably shouldn’t have any say in that decision,_ Toph says.

 

 _Right._ I think for a moment, and remember the nebulous thoughts that I’d had, and my dream. _I think I have an idea._

 

When we’re done packing everything away into the caves, Zuko asks what we’re planning to do. Toph and I exchange - well, not a glance, but an awareness of what we’re about to do - before we pull out the masks I’d instructed her on making. It had been hard to get them the right colors, but I’d managed to find all of the right minerals while we were at the seasonal caves.

 

“That looks like my mask,” Zuko said reaching forward to brush his fingers over the mask I was holding. He glances up at us. “You want to be defenders. Like me.”

 

He glances over at Nuan, who is watching with a blank face, and beyond us in a way I’ve come to be familiar with. There’s never anyone there when I look.

 

“Alright.”

 

* * *

 

Zuko is patient with us, and with his help, we slowly manage to actually stand our own ground against the roving Fire Nation patrols.

 

About a week after we present the masks, Zuko asks Toph and I what they mean. “At first I thought the you just copied my mask. But, I’ve been looking, and you didn’t did you?”

 

 _Of course not. Have you never heard of Ryung and Shalim?_ I ask.

 

“ _I_ don’t know what you’re talking about,” Toph says from the other side of the still unlit fire once she’s done translating. The others have picked up some of the trade language, but not enough to understand most things I say yet.

 

 _Then . . . I’ll tell you,_ I sign. I hesitate for a moment, trying to find the words. _Once, there was a spirit who killed Dusk._

 

. . .

 

_And he said to his friends, "Should my parents ask, it's too late. I stood and I bled indigo skies." Then he left, and the sun set._

 

“I can see why we never heard it,” Zuko says slowly, once Toph’s finished translating. “In a way, it’s about fire trying to gain control over the world, the consequences, and the defeat. Not something you want to have known when you’re trying to take over the world.”

 

I nod in response. I hesitate over my next words for a moment, before I slowly sign them. _Could you . . . can I see your fire?_

 

 _Are you sure?_ Toph asks me, and I glance over at Zuko, who’s repeating the gestures I’d made and putting the meanings together.

 

I’ve thought about this, and I know that I can’t keep being scared of fire. If we’re going to be fighting against the Fire Nation, we’re going to be fighting against Fire Benders, and I’ll be worse than useless if I freeze up the moment a soldier bends. I can’t be scared of cooking fires for all my life either, one day, I’m not going to be with someone who understands my fear, or I’ll be alone, and need to cook for myself. Far better to desensitize myself now, with people I know, and someone I trust ready to help.

 

_I’m sure._

 

“You want me to fire bend?” Zuko asks slowly, before Toph has a chance to tell him what I meant. I nod decisively. Zuko looks uncertain for a moment, glancing at someone who isn’t there, like he always does whenever he hesitates. Momentarily, I wonder what it is that he sees when he does this. Then a look of comprehension spreads over his face, and my attention snaps back to him. “Alright.”

 

His eyes shift down to me, and he repeats himself. “Alright.”

 

Toph gets up from her position on the other side of the unlit fire, and come over to sit next to me, her shoulder providing support as Zuko extends his index finger. He takes a deep breath much like the one I take before bending, then lets it out. I take a shuddering breath when the fire flickers into existence between one moment and the next. Toph leans into my harder, but flame flickering in Zuko’s finger isn’t much more than candles that I’ve been using, and my next breath is more sure.

 

I glance up at Zuko’s eyes after a moment to see him watching me intently. I can handle this much. I nod. His eyes flicker down to his hand, and I follow them to see that he’s extended the rest of his fingers. It takes me a moment to realize that the fire is spreading out to cover all of his finger tips. I start to feel dizzy, but I force myself to keep watching the fire. It doesn’t grow any bigger.

 

Logically I know it doesn’t grow any, I can see the lines on the back of Zuko’s fingers that indicate his first joint. But suddenly, pain hits me, and I find myself gasping, trying to draw in arm as my hands fly to my side. I can hear Toph talking to me, trying to get me to respond. She moves to look at me, and I collapse backwards without her support. Voices of the Fire Nation soldiers that cut down my people in cold blood overlap with her voice, and and even tough I can see her leaning over me, the white skull faceplates of the soldiers hover before me. Sometimes I’m running, trying desperately to get away, and sometimes I’m laying on the sand and resigned to death.

 

“Leave him alone,” echoes a voice, and I blink to see two soldiers standing over me. The one on the right has his hand flattened, and flames dancing along his finger tips. “He’ll die soon enough from that gut wound.”

 

“Koh take it,” the boy to my left curses. The two soldiers don’t seem to hear him as they turn away from me. The boy to my right grabs my hand, and the two soldiers overlap with him oddly as they keep walking back to the screams of my people.

 

“Samir, listen to me, you’re safe. Toph is here with you - look, she’s right there, holding your hand. It’s alright. You’re - “ his voice breaks, and suddenly I remember him. Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation, runaway, bandit, friend. I push myself up before he can continue, and turn as my stomach rebels to throw up onto the sand.

 

* * *

 

“You feel better?” Toph asks gently as she settles down next to me. I nod and pull the blankets tighter around me.All of the earth within a couple of steps distance is charred and ashy, and beyond that, I can see the singed bark and leaves of the trees that surround the small clearing. I shift slightly to brace myself as Toph leans closer, and ash falls from the folds of the blanket. I can’t even bring myself to shiver at the reminder of the fire that had blazed hot and bright for moments.

 

“Have you ever hear of a firebreak?” Toph asks contemplatively after a while of just observing the land around us. I shake my head. I glance over at her to see her playing with some ash, compacting it in the air and making it take of a variety of shapes. Her eyes stare sightlessly out as she abandons any pretense of needing them, and her three free limbs are all touching the ground. Her lips are twisted into a wry smile, and when she next opens her fist, the ash has take the form of flames. “Right, you live in a desert. There’s not enough vegetation for a flash fire.”

 

“Well, in Goaling, we were surrounded by forest, you remember? And on the hillsides, there was lots of grass.  Three years ago, back when I was four, we had that bad drought. I was worried about my servants - it got bad enough that most of the local farms didn’t even bother planting that year, there wasn’t enough water to even try it.

 

“We were still a major trade port, and we managed to survive off of that, but no one carries enough fresh water with them to trade in. I remember the grass on the hills went so dry that it crunched under my feet - the nanny they assigned to me told me how beautiful it was one time, like the hills had been covered in white gold.

 

“The thing was though, that this meant they were dry. Dangerously so. Mother and Father worried over it almost constantly over the last month, worried that something would happen, and the hillsides would go up in flames right over our heads, and what do you know, they did.” Toph chuckles bitterly. “I remember it happening. I didn’t know how to see with my earthbending then so all I can remember about that start was my nanny suddenly yelling and picking me up. Then came the smell. It smelled nice at first. Then the air started to get hot.  There was a roaring sound, like I’ve always imagined  dragon’s roar.

 

“My parents had dug a shelter, just in case. That’s where the nanny was running to. The air grew hotter, and I remember gasping because even though I was breathing deep, I couldn’t get enough to breathe. Then suddenly the air grew cooler. The nanny had stopped running, though she starts walking again after a moment.

 

“Later, she told me what had happened. The hills caught on fire, and it spread quickly because all of the plants were so dry. It managed to spread all the way around the valley, and the only reason it didn’t manage to spread down to the floor was because of the fire breaks that my parent had insisted upon.

 

Toph closes her hand over the ashes.

 

“A fire break is something that stops a fire from crossing over to the other side. You can do it with water, if you have enough of that, or earth.” She pauses, her left hand coming up to inspect the shape of the ashes she’d been manipulating. “Or, you can do it with fire. A fire won’t go back over an area that’s recently been burned. There’s nothing for it to consume because the first fire consumed everything that could be consumed.”

 

I turn to look at the circle of ash and burnt plants around me.

 

A fire break. Well, I’ve already been burnt. Mayben I can save someone else from that fate.

 

Toph’s smiling when I glance back at her, and she stands, then turns to offer me a hand up.

  
I’m still going to be scared of fire when I wake up. I know that, and I know it won’t go away quickly. But I can fight, and I can stop this from breaking me.

**Author's Note:**

> The story reference in the second chapter is the in-world version of The Longest Day, which I have posted. It's somewhat incomplete because it's been a long time since its happened, and storytellers have told and embelished upon it over the years, like they do with any story.


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